Coleman Report in the Modern Era

The following post is inspired by this article (it is admittedly long, but worth the read):

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/technology/technology-in-schools-faces-questions-on-value.html?pagewanted=6&_r=1&hp

Before I begin I am going to warn you that this is one of those posts that is more about sociology than my students, but I threw in a picture at the end to amuse you, and there will be a back to school post soon.

I've been looking for inspiration since my last post and finally here it is! This article questions the effectiveness of technology in the classroom, mostly as a result of one school district that has spent a significant amount of money to have increased technology in all of the classrooms there. As test results came in this summer it was time for districts to really consider what is going on in their classrooms that is effective and what is not. Unfortunately the tech heavy school district did not raise test scores since the implementation of laptops/smartboards/projectors/etc. As I read I could not help but think back to all of my sociology of education classes to one of the most cited reports in the history of American education: The Coleman Report. In brief, The Coleman Report found that increased spending in America's schools did not actually result in increased high academic achievement. So to sum it up school funding ≠ increased student achievement. Now the report was hundreds of pages long so it said a lot more than that, but at the time this was really BIG news to people because the thought was always more spending = high achievement. After reading this article I couldn't help but think, "well we've proven Coleman's hypothesis right again."

Technology is a hot topic in education, just as it is in the rest of the world. The thing I find the most amusing about this though is that while most top executives carry their Ipads to work, or college students take notes on their laptops in class while they simultaneously wirelessly search the internet, the technology in classrooms is actually pretty archaic. I think that I've noted this in posts before. Let me give you a few examples: the oh-so-coveted smartboard (an enormous piece of equipment that many teachers cannot even use properly that only allows a few students at a time to interact with it manually), my class computers (although I am very grateful for them, are PCs that run on an old server, an older version of word, and are all plugged into the wall), laptop carts (I haven't actually seen one of these at my school, but I've heard they exist and I imagine the technology is far from up to date), and the age-old overhead projector (which is actually being phased out at my school for document cameras, but we have what looks like an overhead projector graveyard in the library right now).

If Coleman found that in 1966 an increased spending on schools was not directly increasing student achievement than what are we doing spending all of this money on technology? Now this is not to say that I do not see the value in educational spending, because believe me I DO, nor is to say that I don't want those Nooks in my classroom this year because I DO, but I just hope that we are figuring out where the right places to spend are. Sociologists frequently harp on the fact that Coleman's report found that it was not so much school spending on resources that effected student outcomes but instead it was about student background and socioeconomic status. If technology is not helping close gaps, then we need to find out what truly is the difference between the experience of a successful high SES student and an unsuccessful low SES student and spend money on filling those gaps. Now we are getting into examining the whole child and what gaps exist between students from different SES levels, and I could go on about this for a long time. I believe that what it comes down to are gaps in cultural capital. Initially, we may have thought that technology fits into the category of cultural capital, but maybe this study says it doesn't. It may just be another resource that is not closing the gaps as Coleman said.

In my next post I will talk about the gaps we are creating/sustaining with cultural capital, how I suggest to avoid creating/sustaining those gaps, and how I plan to address it this year with MY STUDENTS!

A picture to leave you with...an explosion of resources that were not being used by a veteran teacher at my school. Coleman would not support. To my dismay, and eventual amusement this is how I found my classroom about 7 days before school began.

Luckily the cabinets were miraculously emptied before I went to dispose of everything in them.

Feeling Appreciated

A few months ago I decided to call the local art museum in Charlotte (http://www.mintmuseum.org/mint-museum-uptown.html) and see if they would donate tickets so that I could take some of my best students to the museum as a reward for good behavior and hard work. I requested 5-10 tickets and they gave me 20 student tickets and 5 adult tickets for free! The power of just asking was astounding to me in this situation. I could not be more grateful for their generosity.

Yesterday was the big day. I brought two other teachers and my TFA program director to help me out, and the students were all dropped off on a Saturday morning at the museum. The day went flawlessly. The students were so engrossed in the tour, answering really high-level thinking questions, and asking questions. Their appreciation seeped through the whole museum. For many of the students this was their first trip to an art museum, and for some of them their first trip to a museum in general!

Sometimes teaching is a thankless job, student progress towards objectives and mastery does not happen as fast as I would hope, and many days the comedy show that is my job ensues. Yesterday the students thanked me in so many ways, by being engaged, behaving appropriately, and being appreciative.

I believe that there are many reasons for the achievement gap, but one reason that I frequently come back to is the gap in cultural capital. Yesterday as I watched my students engage in such deep thinking simply motivated by a piece of artwork my conclusions about this factor in the achievement gap came to fruition. My other belief is that the culture of a student's surroundings teaches them how to act. KIPP schools (http://www.kipp.org/) pride themselves on having a culture of achievement and discipline, and the result of this is that students behave and achieve at high levels. At the art museum people were quietly milling around the art work, appreciating its beauty, and respecting the individuals around them, my students did the same.

America's schools have a lot of growth to make, especially our lowest income and lowest performing schools. I think yesterday I found a place to start, simply exposing students to what high income students are exposed to: a culture of discipline and achievement, and different types of cultural capital (art, music, dance, etc.). The students appreciate it.